Online rating
An online rating is the number a website or app computes from games played on that platform; it belongs to that site's player pool and is separate from FIDE and national over-the-board ratings.
Every platform builds its own rating pool. Your number on one site comes only from games against that site's members, under that site's time controls and formula. Because pools differ in strength and in who joins, ratings across sites are not interchangeable, and the same player can see widely different numbers on two sites.
Online ratings also split by time control, so a blitz rating and a rapid rating on one account can sit far apart, just as FIDE keeps separate lists for standard, rapid and blitz play. Federations draw the same line. US Chess keeps online regular, quick and blitz systems apart from its over-the-board ones, with no formal link between them beyond how a new rating is started. FIDE's Handbook carries separate Online Arena rating regulations, and its regular titles are for over-the-board standard chess (Title Regulations, clause 0.3).
Use an online rating as a guide to how you are doing against that site's players, not as an official strength. Read next about Glicko rating, rapid rating and blitz rating.
It sits close to Fair play. Fair play is the rule that every game must be decided by the players' own thinking, which means no engine help, no advice from others during play and no tricks that distort a result.
How "Online rating" applies to your own results depends on where you stand now, and the improvement plans by rating band show what players near your rating work on.
Related terms
A Glicko rating is a rating that comes with an uncertainty value, the rating deviation, so that a player with few or old results can move faster than one with a long recent record.
A rapid rating is a rating earned in rapid games, kept apart from the standard rating, so the same player can hold different numbers for slow, rapid and blitz chess.
A blitz rating is a rating earned in blitz games, kept on a separate list from standard and rapid ratings, because fast play measures a different skill.
A FIDE rating is the Elo-based number that the World Chess Federation publishes each month for players with rated games, with a published minimum of 1400, and it is the rating that FIDE titles are measured against.
A rating system is a method that turns game results into a number for each player, rising after wins against strong opponents and falling after losses, so that strength can be compared.
Guides that go further
What a rating measures, how FIDE, Lichess, US Chess and chess.com compute theirs, and why the numbers differ.
Average chess rating and a good chess rating
What share of active Lichess players are rated above 800, 1200, 1500, 1800 or 2000, by time control.
Work out how a FIDE rating changes after a run of games.
Sources
- FIDE Handbook B.01 FIDE Title Regulations, effective 1 January 2024, Clause 0.3, read Oct 21, 2026.
- US Chess, The US Chess Rating System (Glickman and Doan), dated 6 April 2026, Sections 1 and 7, read Oct 21, 2026.
Want to spot this in your own games?
A first lesson starts with your games: George reviews them and builds a study plan around what he finds.